


Ghosts

by anythingbutplatonic



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 4x05, Episode Related, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Missing Scene Fic, episode reaction fic, haunted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 17:10:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5172398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutplatonic/pseuds/anythingbutplatonic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t know if I believe in ghosts,” Felicity said, “but I like to think that somehow, somewhere, the people we love that we’ve lost are watching over us. Keeping us safe. Making sure we’re happy. I’m sure your parents are, too, wherever they are.”</p>
<p>Episode reaction/missing scene fic for 4x05 “Haunted”. </p>
<p>Takes place before Felicity goes to Palmer Tech. to see if Curtis has been successful with Ray’s recording (you’ll see why).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

Star City Cemetery was quiet and empty when Felicity pulled up onto the sidewalk in front of the entrance, the bright red car a splash of colour against the darkening sky. The sight of Oliver’s bike, propped up against the wall near the gates, told her that she had come to the right place.

Sara’s return from the dead had been a shock to them all; as had her subsequent madness as a result of the Pit restoring her physical body but not her soul, her spirit - what made her  _human_. 

And then, luckily - fortunately - miraculously, Oliver had presented them with a solution, a way to help Sara and bring her back to them. A way to save Sara’s soul.

Cutting off her car’s engine, she sat in silence for a moment, remembering the events of earlier that afternoon. The list of ingredients John Constantine had instructed her to gather for him; Sara lying unconscious in a black circle traced on the ground and marked with odd symbols; Oliver and Laurel joining hands over her body as the space had been filled with the strange sounds of the spell that would bring her back.

_Oliver_.

She’d seen the look on his face when he and Laurel had returned from the “spirit world”, or wherever it was Constantine had taken them on their quest to return Sara’s soul to its rightful owner. She remembered him pale and unsteady on his feet, stumbling quite literally into her arms as if she were the only thing keeping him from collapsing to the ground. 

And she’d seen the tears, shining in his eyes, as Sara had given a gasp and a jerk and put her arms around her sister and father, back with her family at last.

In the midst of the emotional reunions and the knowledge that Sara was really, truly alive and well - thanks to magician in a trench coat and tie who she wasn’t entirely sure had all of his brain cells intact - she hadn’t had a chance to ask Oliver how he felt about all of this. 

Sure, they’d talked when Sara hadn’t been  _Sara_ , and he’d told her that whatever was happening to her wasn’t worth restoring her life - that instead of healing the pain of losing her, it was simply making it worse - but she’d never asked him directly how he felt about Sara being back, period. 

It wasn’t every day that someone you’d lost so many times in your life came back once more, especially after a year of grief and pain and the way, after she’d died, everything had come apart like a crushed sandcastle. 

Which was why she’d followed him to the cemetery.

It made sense, after everything that had happened over the last few days, that this was where he would go.

Felicity couldn’t explain what it was that made her get into her car and follow him. Instinct, maybe. An unconscious - or was it subconscious? - feeling, something that told her to stay close to him. That he needed her. 

She’d always been good at that, being able to tell when he needed her. It was like a sixth sense, without the creepy “seeing dead people” thing. That sense had only strengthened in the time they’d spent together over the summer, before returning to Starling -  _Star_  - City. 

And he needed her now. She knew it.

Stepping out of her car, she made her way to the front entrance. The heavy gate creaked when she pushed it open and clanged shut, too loud, in a gust of wind that nipped at her cheeks and nose, making her draw her thin jacket around herself as she made her way between the rows of low headstones, turning from grey to black in the dwindling light. 

Felicity had always thought of graveyards as unsettling places, full of the bodies of the dead, where departed souls whispered in the trees and reminded you of your own mortality. She had only been to this particular cemetery twice; once for Moira Queen’s funeral, and once to bury Sara. She had no life-affirming memories here, only bitterness and tragedy. 

Still, her memory served her well as she navigated the rows of graves, some more cared for than others, towards the place where she knew Oliver’s parents had been laid to rest. Or at least, one of them; Robert Queen’s coffin would always remain empty, his true resting place on the island of Lian Yu, thousands of miles from here, in a makeshift grave marked with wood and stones, the best Oliver had been able to do for the father who gave his life to protect him.

Now, as she approached the graves, she could see him kneeling in the grass in front of his mother’s headstone, absorbed in the task of arranging bright purple flowers in a pot, the colour standing out against what little sunlight remained. Even if she were closer, she wouldn’t have been able to tell what kind they were; only that his large hands moved quickly, handling the long, delicate stems with practiced care, each one placed _just so_  before reaching for the next. Felicity remembered watching him fashion arrowheads, back when they’d first started this mission - back when they had simply been teammates and nothing more - and being fascinated by the way he worked, a big man handling such small pieces of metal in careful, agile hands. 

This was the same, yet also very different. It wasn’t weapons he was making this time; it was an offering in memory of a lost loved one, an act of grief rather than an act of vengeance. 

Felicity shivered slightly in the cool air as she watched Oliver work, the silence of the cemetery fitting rather than disturbing. If she’d spoken, or called out to him, it would have shattered the calm that seemed to keep him in his own little bubble, away from the real world. A bubble where he wasn’t Oliver Queen, Mayoral candidate, or the Green Arrow, Star City Vigilante, but simply a grieving child who missed his parents. 

Some things, she thought, never really went away, no matter how much you thought you had moved on from them. How much you thought you were coping. 

Maybe you never  _could_  fully cope with losing someone. And Oliver, well - he’d lost more than most. More than some people ever did in a lifetime. 

It only made her love him more. Not to make up for those losses - nothing could ever do that - but to know that he wasn’t alone.

_You are not alone, and I believe in you._

It had been two years - almost three - since she’d told him that, in the Clock Tower that Sara had used as a base in the city, when he’d been convinced that there was no way to defeat Slade Wilson. It was as true then as it was now. Maybe even more so. 

Oliver rose to his feet then, the cellophane wrapper that had held the flowers balled in his fist; Felicity heard the crinkle of the plastic over the breeze, watched as he rolled his shoulders to get rid of the stiffness from kneeling. 

“You don’t have to stand so far away. My mother’s ghost isn’t going to jump out at you.” 

Felicity started when he spoke; she hadn’t even realized he’d known she was there. There was laughter in his tone, though his posture remained tense. Trying to pretend he was more okay than he felt, probably. But he should have known he didn’t have to pretend for her sake. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Felicity muttered, and then Oliver  _did_  laugh; she blushed, embarrassed that he’d heard. It wasn’t a secret that she and Mrs. Queen hadn’t been on the best of terms. At worst, she’d been openly hostile to the woman. She’d tried to keep her thoughts about his mother to herself, afraid that it would upset him. 

“Come here,” Oliver called, extending his arm to her. “If mom’s ghost does show up, I’ll tell her to be nice.”

“Ha ha ha,” Felicity deadpanned, but without malice. She crossed the space between them, the heels of her shoes sinking a little in the soft ground, and let him wrap his arm around her, pulling her close to his side. With the chill in the air, it was nice to be able to leach some of the warmth from his body, though he himself wore only a thin t-shirt underneath his jacket. 

“Hello, Mrs. Queen,” Felicity said quietly, in the direction of the headstone. “Sorry for, y’know, thinking you were going to come out and bite me. Well, not  _you_ , obviously, but your ghost. The flowers are lovely.” She turned to look up at Oliver, a small smile on her lips. “Your son has good taste.”

“I wanted something cheerful,” he said simply. “And the store didn’t have any lilies. Those were her favourite. So I got the next best thing.”

Felicity pressed her lips to his bicep through the material of his jacket, lingering just a little too long before murmuring, “They’re still lovely.”

Oliver’s grip tightened around her waist reflexively, an unconscious action that she knew meant,  _Stay close to me._ She burrowed closer into his side, not just for the warmth he provided but also to let him know that she wasn’t going anywhere. 

“I think Thea’s been coming here every now and then,” he said. “But not for a while. And me....” He sighed, and when he spoke again, there was sadness in his voice, and a sense of disappointment with himself. “I should have come sooner. I shouldn’t have waited this long. It shouldn’t have taken Sara coming back for me to visit my parents’ graves for the first time in eight months.”

The guilt in his voice was palpable, and Felicity didn’t know what to say. Oliver’s situation wasn’t exactly ordinary, and ordinary words wouldn’t make a difference. 

“Don’t punish yourself,” she eventually said, keeping her tone gentle. “You did what you could. You have a life, and it’s a good one. Just because you’re not here, it doesn’t mean you’re not  _here_. In spirit, I mean. Your mom knows that.”

“I still feel guilty,” Oliver replied. “Eight months is a long time.”

“She’ll forgive you.” Felicity’s voice was barely above a whisper, her words too grave to warrant anything louder. “I know it.”

“I thought it might not hurt as much, with all the time that’s passed since she died,” he said, “but it still does. Even worse is knowing that my father should have been buried with her. But his body is on Lian Yu, and nobody knows that except me. So there’s no way of making it right.”

Felicity thought of Ray, then. Of how there’d been no body to identify, no remains for burial. No way to really, truly say goodbye. 

That may have been worse than knowing he was dead in the first place. 

“I would give anything to see them again.”

_But not the way Laurel used on Sara_ , was the subtext of his words. Loss hurt, and could at times be excruciating, but nobody should be subjected to what Sara had been. Even with the cure - even though Constantine had been able to retrieve her soul - that was no life for a person. 

“I don’t know if I believe in ghosts,” Felicity said, “but I like to think that somehow, somewhere, the people we love that we’ve lost are watching over us. Keeping us safe. Making sure we’re happy. I’m sure your parents are, too, wherever they are.”

“Gone, but not forgotten,” Oliver supplied, and Felicity nodded. He smiled. “I like that thought. Tommy is probably up there somewhere telling me to have more fun, and to drink more.”

“He would be right,” Felicity agreed, letting herself giggle a little at the idea of the ghost of Tommy Merlyn encouraging his best friend to let loose and enjoy himself. And she would never say no to a little more alcohol in her life. “I wish I could have known him. I mean, I knew  _of_  him, but I didn’t know him. Not like you did.”

“I want to see him before we leave,” Oliver said, his voice pricked with emotion. “If that’s okay.”

“Of course,” Felicity replied. “I’d like to see him, too.”

“You can introduce yourself as my girlfriend,” Oliver joked. “He’d like that.”

Felicity hummed, pressing herself tighter against Oliver’s chest. “I’m sure he would, if even half of the stories you’ve told me about him are true.”

“Trust me, they’re true.”

“Even the one where he dared you to pee on a cop car?”

“Even that one.”


End file.
